


The Calling

by Griddlebone



Category: Belgariad/Malloreon Series - David & Leigh Eddings
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dreams, Gen, Prophetic Dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 18:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16938129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griddlebone/pseuds/Griddlebone
Summary: Once, it had been a dead woman's face that haunted Zakath. Now his dreams were even more bleak than that.





	The Calling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hydrangea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrangea/gifts).



Not long ago, it had been a dead woman's face that haunted his dreams. Now, on those rare occasions when Zakath slept, his dreams were even more bleak than that: he stood alone upon an endless plain that faded on all sides into distant infinity. No end, no relief, and no other living beings.

At first, that had seemed a respite in itself. To no longer see the face of the beloved woman who had died as the ultimate result of her illness, from which not even the best healers in Mallorea could save her... that had been a profound relief, the likes of which Zakath had seldom experienced.

Yet as night after night went by, that endless, featureless plain began to become its own sort of hell--the dreamtime accompaniment to the daily hell of his waking life. There was no obvious source of light, but he could see well enough to know immediately where his dreaming had taken him. The place was always the same. Always empty. Always silent.

For a time Zakath wondered idly what such a recurring dream might say about his innermost character, though he ultimately decided it did not matter. He was, after all, still Emperor of Boundless Mallorea. It did not really matter if he felt bleak and empty inside, or if this was reflected in his dreams. It could not possibly have any real bearing on his life or the world; dreams and prophecy were well and good, he supposed, but they had no true impact on the waking world except what people made of them. With the gods dead or departed, there could be no supernatural forces pulling the strings.

As the weeks passed and the nights grew longer as the season turned toward the winter solstice, Zakath realized that the dream plain had changed since he first found himself there. It had been so gradual that he hadn't noticed while it was happening. It was only by thinking back to what it had been like the first time that he became aware of the subtle shifts.

That first time, he had stood upon a flat, silvery surface beneath a dull grey sky. Both had extended uninterrupted and unchanging for farther than he could see.

When he entered the dream now, he saw that the ground beneath his feet had taken on a darker cast and developed a texture not unlike waves upon the ocean. And in the west, each night without fail, rose a shining blue sun. He would follow its path for what felt like days, but always found himself awake in his bed just as that unusual sun reached its zenith. It had never been more than a few hours in the waking world.

He might have wondered about the strange coloring of that dream sun, or the fact that it rose in the west--though he could not have said why he was so sure it rose in the west, being that there were no landmarks to tell him what was where in the dream. But it was nothing more than a dream, and come morning he always decided it was not worth the wondering. There was too much else to be done.

Until, that is, something new appeared in the dream. Even though it was quiet at first, this he noted immediately: a strange ringing sound, as if some great chime had been rung in the distance and now its echo swept over the wavy ground of the dream plain.

Even when Zakath opened his eyes and found himself awake in his bedroom with dawn just beginning to slip in through the windows, he could still hear the last vestige of that sound. This was slightly disturbing, as no part of the dream had ever appeared to follow him into the waking world before. He would have vastly preferred for the dream nonsense to stay where it belonged: within the dream.

He paced to the east-facing windows of his chamber and looked out, but saw only the ordinary sun rising like fire above the horizon to burn the black sky into blue. He couldn't explain why he had expected to see that enormous blue orb instead. Nor could he explain why the sound lingered with him, or his sudden certainty that the sound had been a call.

 _You should go to the west._ The thought entered his mind unbidden, and yet once he acknowledged it, it seemed to him as if it had been there, waiting, ever since he first dreamed of that featureless plain.

Who, he wondered, was impertinent enough to think they might summon the Emperor of Boundless Mallorea into the west by stalking his dreams?

Whoever--or whatever--it was had so far made no attempt to make itself known. At least attempting to puzzle out the identity of the culprit, while at the same time resisting the increasingly insistent call that urged him always toward the west, gave Zakath something to do beyond the day-to-day business of managing an empire the size of Mallorea.

Day by day, or rather night by night, however, the blue light and the strange ringing sound grew more intense, until he thought he might be blinded or deafened by their power. Zakath was by nature a patient man, willing to wait out most troubles and see what might happen before deciding how to act, but this transformed his dreams from boring to nightmarish, and kept right on going until even he could stand it no longer.

At last he stood upon the wavy ground of his dream plain, his eyes squeezed shut against the blinding blue and his head ringing in echo to the sound that overwhelmed all else... and lost his temper.

"Who are you?" he shouted across the empty plain. His voice sounded hollow, and did not echo the way the ringing sound did. "I am Kal Zakath, the Dread Emperor of Boundless Mallorea. Who are _you_ to command me?"

Abruptly the ringing ceased. The blue orb swept down from the sky in response to his shout, shrinking as it came until it could rest upon the palm of his outstretched hand. It had become not a burning sun, but an orb of crystal, and when he looked into it he saw not his own reflection but the unfamiliar face of another man. The man was youthful, yet he sat upon a throne and in his eyes Zakath saw a knowing glimmer.

Even in the dream Zakath knew that he could not have peered through this orb and into the eyes of the man he knew to be the Rivan King, the Godslayer, and yet--he was certain he had done just that. He was equally certain that he had just encountered someone whose power could rival his own, who could provide the sort of challenge that his life had been utterly lacking until now. It occurred to him that there must inevitably be conflict between two men with that much power, enthroned on opposite sides of a warring world.

Thus far he had argued his way out of any encounter with the Rivan King, preferring to run his own empire and focus on his marriage and hopes for a family instead of rivalries with foreign powers. Now that those hopes had come to nothing and his empire seemed capable of running itself, and now that Torak would meddle in human affairs no more, he could think of no reason to keep delaying the inevitable. Those knowing eyes had pierced through his defenses to offer not just a promise of conflict to come, but an end to the lonely monotony that had overtaken his life.

Zakath woke, frowning at the sudden and unfamiliar feeling of anticipation that had welled up in his heart while he slept. He had felt nothing but apathy for so long that anything else was alien by comparison.

Yet now he found that he _wanted_ to go into the west, to look upon this man himself and see just what a Rivan King might do when confronted by the Emperor of Mallorea. What secrets might this man hold, who had killed a god those long years ago? And what reasons might he have for calling to Zakath through his dreams?

What would it be like to look into those eyes in person? The idea was deeply and surprisingly intriguing, and even a bit exciting.

"Very well," he said aloud, for all that no one was there to hear him. "I shall go to Riva."

And for the first time since he could remember, Zakath smiled.


End file.
